Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Meet Edgar, The Cat Who Loved Only Me. This is a pretty big deal for me since most of my so-called animal friends usually preferred someone else over yours truly. I first met Edgar when Mike & I went to visit our friends Robert & Ellen. Ellen had Edgar since he was a kitten, but when Robert moved in, for some reason he couldn't stand Edgar. Maybe the fact that Edgar saw no problem with jumping on the table during dinner bothered Robert, who also didn't like sharing his bed with the cat. I LOVED Edgar and told them that if they ever had to get rid of him, I'd take him. This caused some raised eyebrows over on Mike's side, but since our current cat, Miss Kitty, owned him lock, stock and barrel, I guess he figured I needed a cat to call my own. When Robert & Ellen moved away, Edgar moved in with us. From that moment on, I had me a PET! The only time Edgar would have anything to do with Mike was (1) when he needed to walk over Mike to get to me, or (2) when I was gone overnight and Edgar figured he'd starve if he didn't pay a bit of attention to the only human in the house. Other than that, Edgar sat on my lap, slept right by my side, and eventually traveled with me, sleeping on my lap as I drove.

This is Edgar's favorite spot during what passes for winter in the South. The pilot light on the stove emits just enough heat to warm a kitty cat on a cold day, and more than enough heat to make the kitchen HORRIBLY hot the rest of the year. I love my stove--it's just about old enough to be retro. The incredibly tacky metal backsplash was there when we moved in 15 years ago and we might get around to replacing it eventually (after we've completed the other 10,000 things on "The List").

Edgar died when he was about 12, so we got several good years out of each other. I buried him in a pretty patch in our woods and surrounded the spot with statues of a cat, a bird, and St. Francis. There was an opening in the azalea bushes in front of the woods, which became the entrance to Edgar's Spot--I put two light sensitive lanterns there and their soft glow was lovely at night. Now the azalea bushes have grown over the entrance and when the wasps took over the lanterns we got rid of them, but I'll always have a special place in my heart for my darling Edgar, The Cat Who Loved Only Me.